David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

(Some thoughts prompted by this blog post)

A question I have often asked, and never gotten a satisfactory answer to, is this: what can I wear to a science fiction convention that would be as sexy as a corset?

Lots of women wear corsets at conventions these days. They make nearly any woman look sexy, whether she’s svelte or generously proportioned. But I’m not aware of anything equivalent for men. One answer I’ve gotten to this question is “a corset, duh.” But I’ve tried male corsets and they don’t do anything for me. Fundamentally I believe the problem is that they don’t change my shape at all. Another answer is “a tux.” I can get into that (and have), but it’s not quite the same thing.

I realized the other day that the reason there’s no good answer to this question arises from Western society’s ideas about gender. A corset is not sexy principally because it emphasizes a woman’s secondary sexual characteristics. A corset is sexy because it emphasizes the differences between a woman and a man — where “man” should be read in the deprecated meaning of “human being.” In other words, a corset emphasizes the difference between a “woman” and a “person,” or between “mark” and “norm.” Thus, there is no equivalent of a corset for men because there are no differences between a man and a person (societally speaking) to emphasize.

Clothing that emphasizes a man’s secondary sexual characteristics can still be sexy, and appealing to individuals. But it’s not “sexy” in the societally-endorsed way that a corset is.

Note that I am not endorsing this view, I’m just observing it.

Your thoughts?

What I would like is a screen saver that, when you sit down at the computer, will not unlock until you answer the question “What did you come to the computer to do?” and then displays that answer prominently but not obnoxiously on the screen (perhaps in a floating or semi-transparent window) until dismissed. Perhaps to dismiss it you would have to type in some text indicating what you had done about the whatever-it-was. Perhaps the prompt and the reply would be recorded, time-stamped, in a log file.

This is intended to address the problem of going to the computer and getting sucked in by LiveJournal or Facebook or Twitter or such for an hour before you realize you didn’t even do the simple five-minute thing you went to the computer to do.

Does this exist (for the Mac, please)? Or do any of you have the skillz to write it?

(Yes, it could be overridden by typing gibberish, and after using the thing for a while one would probably get in the habit of doing so. It’s as hard to outsmart oneself as it is to tickle oneself. But one must try…)

Getting up and doing something else now.

A while ago I learned that my story “Firewall” (the link goes to the complete story at Baen Books’ WebScription.Net) had been translated into Chinese, without authorization or payment, by the magazine SF King. I tracked down an email for them and sent a request for author copies, at least. Well, the other day a very battered package arrived from China containing five copies of the magazine.

I have to say that, even though it’s pirated and all, I’m really happy with it. I don’t know SF King‘s readership but even if it’s a minor Chinese magazine it probably has many times the readers of F&SF or Asimov’s. It’s a quality magazine, my story is second on the cover, and it’s got five lovely illustrations (three of them are below, click to embiggen).

I love seeing foreign illustrations of my own stuff. The illos are always apropos, definitely representing images from my story, and yet they are characteristic of the translator’s country (for example, the version of Walker in the illustrations of the Polish translation of “Tk’Tk’Tk” looks Polish to me). In this case, as usual, the characters are nothing like I’d pictured them but totally like themselves. Although they are kind of anime versions of themselves. Which is very cool.

If anyone reading this reads Chinese, I’d be happy to send you scans of the whole story (25MB of JPGs). It has footnotes, and I would love to know what they say!

Word count: 4179 | Since last entry: 1623

Finished up the first draft of my story for the Shine anthology in a burst of 1000+ words, and sent it to my critique group. Stories always go quicker for me at the end, when I’ve built the world, established the character’s voice, and set up all the plot bits to set up the ending. In this case, though, I got to the climax and realized it didn’t match up with the character’s situation at the beginning of the story, so I went back and changed the beginning to set up the end I’d come to. That’s the nice thing about fiction, as opposed to real life. I’m not 100% satisfied with the story as it stands, but that’s what critique is for.

Yesterday we went to the art museum for an exhibit centered on a new Ganesh stele they just acquired, which was quite nice although the exhibit was smaller than I’d anticipated (only about a dozen pieces). As we walked in, we noticed that the two large stone bowls in front of the museum’s Mark Building (a former Masonic temple) were spewing flame, which they don’t normally do, and we guessed that a movie or TV show was using the museum as a location. But when we came out, we found ourselves in the middle of a colorful parade of academics. We eventually determined that the parade was part of the ceremony of installation, or investiture, or some such, for the new president of Portland State University.

The parade was led by a drum corps, followed by the Royal Rosarians, followed by a hundred or so people wearing doctoral gowns. These are a lot more interesting than the usual black graduation gowns, as each institution and department that grants doctoral degrees has its own special gown and hood, and sometimes hat, and the tradition is that on ceremonial academic occasions each person with a doctorate wears the outfit of the institution where they obtained it. (I believe they are usually rented rather than owned… the job of stocking and renting out the appropriate academic garb for hundreds or thousands of colleges must be daunting.) Some of them are quite flamboyant and colorful.

We went back to the art museum today, for a presentation of rare footage of the Muppets (including the original pilot for The Muppet Show, titled Sex and Violence and featuring the Swedish Chef subtitled in Chinese). Original Muppeteer Dave Goelz (Gonzo) was scheduled to present it, but unfortunately was unable to appear. We still laughed harder than I can recall doing in a long time. One of the highlights was a string of ten or twenty of the thirty-second “this week on the Muppet Show” commercials, each of which was a delightful dollop of concentrated goofiness despite the fact that it was so brief and held to such a strict formula. We’ll be back again tomorrow, for another Muppet show entitled “Commercials and Experiments.”

Word count: 2556 | Since last entry: 555

Here’s the squee-worthy detail I couldn’t reveal before: I have been selected to write one of three new stories in a hardcover reissue of Wild Cards Volume One! It’s kind of like a Director’s Cut with additional bonus tracks… we’re trying to create stories that feel as though they were left out in the first place. It’s quite a challenge, but also an amazing honor — like getting to write a new episode of the original Star Trek, then getting it filmed (somehow) with the young Shatner and Nimoy and then seeing it broadcast right along with the classic episodes.

George R. R. Martin has more details over at his blog.

Word count: 2001 | Since last entry: 586

Remember The Game of Life? (“I heartily endorse this game.” — Art Linkletter. “Who?” — Kids Today.) One of the major decisions you had to make near the beginning of the game was to take the lengthy detour to College, and earn a higher salary, or go straight into Business, ensuring a lower starting salary but you’d begin receiving it immediately. Even as a kid I always chose the College route.

Writing a novel is like going to college, in that you are investing a lot of time up front with the hope of a bigger payoff later on. Though I am pleased for friends like Greg Van Eekhout and Lisa Mantchev as they go through the throes of first novel publication, I’m also somewhat jealous… I spent most of last year working on my second novel, and now I’m waiting for a response that will probably take another six months or more. Meanwhile I didn’t publish a lot of short stories in 2008, and I won’t publish a lot this year even if I start selling soon. I feel a little sidetracked.

That’s why I’m working intensively on short stories right now. I know the competition for the major short story markets is even fiercer than it is for novels, but I’ve had good luck with my stories and, even if they don’t sell any more quickly than novels do, there are more of them out there so the odds of some kind of sale in any given month are pretty good. If nothing else, I get the thrill of completion every couple of weeks and the chance to start over with something new and interesting.

But I’m hedging my bets. I have another couple short story projects that will keep me busy through July or August, but once those are done I intend to start in on novel #3. Hopefully by alternating novels and short stories I’ll be able to keep my name in front of readers while waiting for that elusive first novel sale.

Word count: 1415 | Since last entry: 1415

Busy, busy day today. The cleaning lady, plumber, and appliance repair guy all came today (not the way we’d have planned it if we’d had the choice, but that’s when they could make it), and then this morning we discovered that overnight Kate’s car had been broken into and the radio stolen, so she had to take it to get the smashed window repaired. So I had to deal with all the service people, so I couldn’t leave the house and it was too distracting to get much of anything done at home. But everyone had left by 4:00, including the cops who came to take Kate’s report, so I could go to the coffee shop and write.

The Fireside Coffee Lodge, where Jay Lake and I and some others sometimes write on Tuesdays, recently changed owners, name, and decor. It’s no longer festooned with bears and tacky woodsy stuff… it now looks like, well, like a brand-new coffee shop, with hard little chairs and tables and no character whatsoever. I’m sure that will change as the new owners settle in, but though the old place was funky and weird and disturbing in a vaguely Deliverance kind of way, the new incarnation is just soulless. Even though the coffee’s better, and they have Voodoo Doughnuts (for the Amazing Race viewers in the audience, this is the place whose motto is “Where the magic’s in the hole!”), I think we’ll be looking for a new place to write on Tuesdays. Maybe Fat Straw, which is comfy and really convenient for me, but the coffee is apparently awful. (The bubble tea is great, but too calorific to make it a weekly habit.)

Anyway… at the end of the day (hmm, usually that’s a metaphor), the house is cleaner, the stove is working again, the loose faucet in the bathroom has been tightened, the broken window in Kate’s car has been repaired, and I have 1400 words of draft on a brand new story.

For a variety of reasons I would really like to get this draft done by Saturday, so I’m shooting for 1000 words per day rather than my usual 500. As it happens, the above progress is two days’ worth, so I’m well below that mark, but my brain is full so I’m stopping now.

Oh, one other thing: I was randomly selected to receive an invite code to Dreamwidth, so I’m set up there as davidlevine. I’ve imported all of my LiveJournal posts to my DW account, and if I’ve set everything up properly all my new posts will appear in both places as well. However, for now I intend to do almost all of my reading and commenting on LJ. That may change if a substantial fraction of my friends (and here I’m using the word “friends” in its ordinary, real-world sense) move from LJ to DW.

What is Dreamwidth, you ask? DW is basically a clone of LJ with some differences. The founders are ex-LJ employees and are trying to create an online community that is more like LJ used to be, using LJ’s code base. It’s basically almost completely identical to LJ, except that they are doing some things differently, like separating the concepts “I read your journal” and “I give you access to my protected journal posts” that are unified in the LJ term “friend.” A more significant difference is that Dreamwidth is, and intends to remain, advertising-free. Also, DW is currently in closed Beta and some things are definitely not ready for prime time, like journal styles. On balance, it’s no better and no worse than LJ.

I’ve created a Dreamwidth account and copied my content to it basically as a backup, a contingency plan in case LiveJournal either becomes unusable for some reason (goes out of business, becomes technically unstable, or makes a management decision that I can’t live with) or simply becomes substantially less popular than DW among my friends. But for now LJ is where I am and where I intend to stay.

Our gas stove is on the fritz (oven won’t turn on, everything else works fine). The guy I called last time we needed appliance repair is no longer in business. Any recommendations? We’re in the Hawthorne neighborhood.

I’ve been keeping up with my goal of at least 500 words or 1 hour of editing per day, but the last time I wrote a word of new draft prose was about a month ago. Since then it’s been all editing, outlines, notes, and proposals.

The good news is that in the last month or so I completed edits on three or four stories and sent them off to market for the first time. I also resubmitted some stories that had been languishing after being rejected, plus sent in some reprints to audio markets… all in all, I’ve more than doubled my number of stories in submission from the first of the year. More submissions will, I hope, lead to more sales. Also, now I can say that the proposals I wrote were for Wild Cards characters and stories, and that some of them were accepted (more news on that front when I can share it).

The bad news is that I haven’t sold a spec story since August. I’ve had seven acceptances since then, but four of those were audio reprints and the other three were sales to markets where I’d been invited. It’s nice to get an invite, or to sell a reprint, but a sale of a new story to a magazine or open anthology is more of a triumph. However, the recent increase in submissions has led to an increase in rejections, which does at least feel more like progress than the period from November to February during which I received no responses at all. It doesn’t help that I’ve had three stories out for over 200 days (the longest has been out for almost 400 days), which is a long time to wait for a response on a short fiction submission. None of these markets have responded to the e-queries I sent in mid-February, but for a variety of reasons I’m not ready to give up on any of them yet.

However, one of the audio reprint sales was “Babel Probe” at Drabblecast, which is a truly amazing performance of the story, and another one (just last week) was “Charlie the Purple Giraffe,” also to Drabblecast, which I am really looking forward to hearing.

I’ve also received my author copy of Nebula Awards Showcase 2009, which has a gorgeous cover and includes my Nebula nominee “Titanium Mike Saves the Day” (illustrated below by thepussinboots).

So, all in all, a pretty good writing month. Tomorrow I expect to begin work on an entirely new story… though I haven’t yet decided which one, and the first few days at least will still be notes and outline. I’m looking forward to drafting again!

Kristine Kathryn Rusch pointed me to a post about ebooks at The Idea/Logical Blog: Some ebook observations.

What this post suggests to me is that publishers need to change from a “book” model of selling their products to a “software” model. Software publishers today manage to sell products very like ebooks, with the same problems of “need to be quality-checked on every platform they run on” and “retailers want to use margin to gain share,” yet they seem to be doing very well. The key is that many different strategies have been successful (for different products in different markets at different times) — publishers will have to become as nimble in selling ebooks as software publishers have been forced to become in selling software. And, as with software, the pricing will be all over the map — bestselling fiction for $4.99, technical titles for $499 — as publishers learn what the market will bear. The transition to this model will occur as it did when video tapes moved from a “priced for rental” model to a “priced for sale” model in the 1980s — same product + different market = entirely different price points.

The branding problem is an interesting one, and differs from the software model. On my computer, the user experience of the Apple-branded word processor, the Microsoft-branded word processor, and the several other brands of word processor differs enormously, but the content (the words they process and the things you can do to those words) is quite similar. But on my ebook reader, the user experience of the Tor-branded, Del Rey-branded, and DAW-branded ebooks is nearly identical although the content of each book is unique. This makes it tough for a brand to establish itself.

Some publishers will try to impose a “house look-and-feel” on their ebooks to create a brand. This won’t work because the ebook experience is so malleable — devices vary in their capabilities, and users want to impose their reading preferences (e.g. font and font size) which is one of the main selling points of the ebook over the paper book — and anything the publisher does to put anything other than plain, readable text on the screen will be resisted by readers.

One thing that publishers can do to establish a brand is to make sure to nail the aspects that make one ebook better than another on the same platform. Make sure the illustrations are the best possible for the platform, make sure the table of contents works, enable any optional features, and do the right thing for every supported platform. This is a heck of a lot of work, but quality control in a multi-platform environment always is, and in the software business we have a saying that “quality doesn’t cost money… quality makes money.”

I think, though, that the bottom line for branding ebooks is identical to that for paper books. A publisher can get some aspects of a paper book right or wrong (font and font size, paper quality, binding) but fundamentally most paper books are quite similar — ultimately the thing that readers will remember about a publisher, if they remember anything at all, is whether or not they consistently provide the kind of books they want to read. That’s how to create a brand.